Twitter Says It Stopped Policing COVID Misinformation Under Musk

New York, US - November 18: A view of Twitter Headquarters on 

November 18, 2022 in New York, United States.
Lokman Vural Elibol—Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

BY MAXWELL ADLER/BLOOMBERG
NOVEMBER 29, 2022 

Twitter Inc. said it ended a policy designed to suppress false or misleading information about COVID-19, part of Elon Musk’s polarizing mission to remake the social network as a place for unmoderated speech.

By discarding the COVID rule, the company will no longer apply labels to posts containing falsehoods about the disease or provide supplemental corrective information as it did before. It will apparently no longer remove inaccurate tweets or ban offending accounts either.

The company disclosed the change in a note added to a page on its website outlining the old COVID policy. It says Twitter stopped enforcing the rule on Nov. 23.

Read More: Twitter Was a Lifeline for People With Disabilities. Musk’s Reign Is Changing All of That

Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Sky News reported on the revision earlier Tuesday.

Over 11,000 accounts had been suspended and over 97,000 pieces of misleading content had been removed from the time Twitter introduced the COVID policy in January 2020 to when it ended last week, according to data on Twitter’s website.

Twitter has received frequent criticism for its lack of action against disinformation and misinformation over the last decade. The critiques were heightened during the presidency of Donald Trump due to his controversial and prolific tweeting, including ones that violated Twitter’s policies on coronavirus misinformation. Musk moved to reinstate Trump’s Twitter account this month, though the former president has yet to post from it.

Twitter quietly drops Covid misinformation prevention policy under Elon Musk

Tuesday 29 November 2022 

Elon Musk has scrapped Twitter's Covid misinformation policy.

Credit: AP

Twitter has quietly ended the enforcement of its policy to stop the spread of Covid misinformation.The social media giant introduced the policy during the pandemic and used it to remove thousands of misleading tweets as part of efforts to stop the spread of “potentially harmful and misleading information” about the virus and vaccines.

Between January 2020 and September 2022, Twitter suspended over 11,000 accounts for breaking Covid misinformation rules, removing almost 100,000 pieces of content that breached those standards, according to internal statistics.

However, a note added to the company’s webpage detailing the policy’s work says that “effective November 23 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the Covid-19 misleading information policy”.The company did not publicly announce the change.

The move is likely to raise new concerns about Elon Musk’s approach to content moderation at the company since his takeover last month.

In spite of recent controversies, Elon Musk's popularity on Twitter is growing.

Credit: AP

Musk has said he believes in “absolute free speech” and wants to reduce content moderation on the site— something critics warned would lead to a spike in abuse, harassment, and other harmful behaviour.

In May 2020, as the pandemic was deepening, the Tesla CEO emerged as a champion of defying lockdown orders intended to stop the coronavirus from spreading in the US.

In one instance, Tesla’s factory reopened— with Musk practically daring local authorities to arrest him.

Since taking over the company in October, the billionaire has laid off more than half of the platform’s 7,500 staff, which has increased fears about the firm’s ability to successfully moderate the site with substantially reduced staff numbers.

Earlier this month, the billionaire restored former US president Donald Trump’s Twitter account and has also allowed Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, to return after he was suspended for antisemitic comments.

According to a report from Bloomberg, Musk has also dramatically reduced the size of the team devoted to tackling child sexual exploitation on the platform.

The report suggests that the team of specialists that review and escalate reports of child sexual exploitation has more been halved.

Last week, the SpaceX CEO tweeted that “removing child exploitation is priority #1”.The changes are the latest incidents in Musk’s turbulent reign as Twitter boss.

On Monday, he accused Apple of threatening to remove the platform from its app store and claimed the iPhone maker had halted most of its advertising on Twitter.

Twitter parodies mock Musk's changes but also present misinformation threat

He criticised the tech giant over its commission on purchases made through Apple’s App Store, and posted a meme suggesting he was willing to “go to war” over the issue.

A number of companies have paused advertising on Twitter amid concerns about Musk’s content moderation plans.

The new Twitter boss has already begun looking for ways to diversify the site's revenue, which is currently almost entirely dependent on advertising.

He is hoping to change this by charging a monthly subscription fee for verified status on the platform through the Twitter Blue service.

This was initially launched earlier this month before being paused after a number of incidents of Twitter users paying for verification and then posing as public figures.

Twitter ended its COVID-19 misinformation policy. Here are other major changes under Elon Musk.

Jenna Moon

Nov 29, 2022

THE NEWS

Twitter quietly ended its COVID-19 misinformation policy last week, one of the latest changes to the site’s moderation since Elon Musk took over the platform one month ago.

Under Musk, permanently banned users are back on Twitter, and hate speech policies are changing.

Here's a look at the moderation changes so far.

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

THE COVID-19 MISINFORMATION POLICY

Twitter is no longer enforcing its COVID-19 misleading information policy as of Nov. 23, the site said in a note last week.

Under the previous policy, implemented in Jan. 2020, accounts which pushed misleading content about the virus or vaccines would be challenged.

More than 11,000 accounts were suspended under the policy, and 97,000 pieces of content were removed.

REVERSING BANS

Under Musk, several permanently banned accounts, as well as restricted accounts have been reinstated.

Most prominently, Musk reversed the permanent ban on former U.S. President Donald Trump’s account after taking a Twitter poll on it. Trump has not started tweeting yet, preferring to use the look-alike site Truth Social, which he helped found.

Right-wing lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had been permanently banned for tweeting COVID misinformation, also had her account reinstated.

Here's a running list of Twitter accounts that have been reinstated under Musk.

HATE SPEECH GETS "MAX DEBOOSTED"

Users will not be able to find hateful or negative tweets unless they actively "seek it out" under Musk's new Twitter policy he described as "freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach."

The offending tweets will be "max deboosted & demonetized," Musk said.

It’s unclear what exactly constitutes hateful or negative speech. Musk has said the policy would apply on a tweet-by-tweet basis, and would not affect entire accounts.

Tech journalist Dell Cameron outlined in a Twitter thread how the site's moderation of hateful tweets towards trans users appears to have changed.

AUTOMATING MODERATION

Earlier this month, The Washington Post reported that Musk is seeking to automate parts of the moderation process, removing the human element which offers some nuance during complicated decisions.

It hasn't yet been implemented, but a vast number of Twitter's moderation staff — an estimated 15% — have left the company since Musk's takeover.